Uruguay has earned a reputation as a democratic country, and the recent passage of laws implementing gay marriage and the legalization of cannabis confirmed its progressive stance. But becoming a top global exporter of iron ore could be a difficult test for this thriving democracy.

In past weeks, the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia moved to shut down or expel major NGOs (non-government organizations) that work on issues of the environment, extractivism, and indigenous rights. Is this a reasoned assertion of sovereignty against foreign intervention or a move against social movements and democracy through an attack on their bases of foreign support?

In a mining conflict country, police brutality under the pay of mining corporations is the ugliest side of community relations. With financial and logistical support from the corporations, the police find incentives to use force. What would Servando Huanca, Vallejo's anti-miner in El tungsteno (1931), have done about it?

Argentina's nationalization of YPF took a strange turn this year when the government signed a deal with Chevron to boost gas extraction through fracking. President Fernández and her team say this will lead the country to "energy sovereignty." But what does energy sovereignty mean and what does fracking mean for popular democracy and real economic transformation?

Faith and large-scale mining have something in common: they both move mountains. On many occasions, the Church has been an obstacle to industry’s efforts to expand into Latin American countries. A growing movement connects anti-mining resistance, spirituality, and environmental struggles.

Extractives in Latin America aspires to draw attention to reality as represented through Latin American eyes and voices. The politics we explore here may run the gamut from getting access to a canister of propane to cook dinner in Bolivia to the paradoxes linking Argentine nationalism, Chevron, and the U.S.-backed fracking push in the hemisphere.

Pedro César García Moreno, a member of Conciencia Campesina and president of the Community Action of El Cajón-La Leona district, was shot dead close to his home on November 2. He had been actively involved in opposing the development of an open-pit gold mining project, had regularly attended environmental meetings, and had helped persuade many farmers in the area not to sell their lands to foreign miners.